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Beyond the Tech: Why Deciding Better Beats Building Faster

Vic Miles, Business Leader, Americas at Microsoft, sits down with Alex Adamopoulos, Chairman and CEO of Emergn, to examine what happens when AI collapses the cost of building and the expensive mistake becomes building the wrong thing. The conversation explores why a decade of agile investment fixed delivery while the real constraint moved upstream, into the room where someone decides what gets built at all.

You’ll hear their take on:

  • Why the advantage in retail and CPG has moved from execution speed to decision quality
  • How to shift the operating question from “Can we build it?” to “Should we build it?”
  • Why AI will not replace your judgment, but it will expose it
  • What separates a product operating model from a project portfolio, and why the distinction -shows up in the P&L
  • Why organizations get stuck in pilot purgatory, and what it costs them to stay there
  • How cost of delay reframes prioritization for teams that already move fast
  • What the project-to-product shift requires from leaders, not just from delivery teams

This discussion challenges the assumption that speed is the whole game in the AI era and makes the case that the next durable advantage belongs to organizations that build a system for deciding well.

About Emergn
Emergn is a global management and technology consultancy founded by Alex Adamopoulos in 2009. The firm helps organizations move from project-based delivery to product-centric operating models, guiding hundreds of leading companies on transformation, capability development, and the craft of product management. Adamopoulos contributes to Forbes, serves as a board member of the Drucker Society, and co-authored the paper Breaking the Failure Cycle with Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson.

Learn more: https://www.emergn.com

Check out these reports from Alex Adamopoulos

Conversations On Retail

Conversations On Retail is a gathering place and resource center for retail and CPG executives, built to make it easier to stay current, discover the technologies and solutions shaping the industry, and connect with the people driving it forward.

We publish news, views, and reviews from staff editors, contributing experts, and trusted partners. Some articles are developed internally, while others are submitted by industry contributors or adapted from interviews and recorded conversations with industry leaders.

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